


Blood Of Love

by Topaz_Eyes



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Gen, IVF, Miscarriage, Poetry, Pregnancy, Sestina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-13
Updated: 2008-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topaz_Eyes/pseuds/Topaz_Eyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cuddy knows that not all life begins with a kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Of Love

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a quote in _The Journals of Sylvia Plath_.

Cuddy knows that not all life begins with a kiss.  
Like today: her legs are spread like a fern  
Parted in the forest, and she dreams of water  
Falling as she lies on the table, as still as a stone  
While the technician inserts the needle; not to draw blood  
But rather her eggs, ready for harvest. _Please don't starve_

_My womb this time_ is her silent plea; her arms have starved  
Too long as it is, for not having a child of her own to kiss.  
She's followed everything faithfully, tracked her blood  
And took her injections, though House was not quite as gentle as a fern  
With the needle. (It's impossible to be like stone  
Around him when his words erode like running water.)

The technician gives Cuddy a glass of water  
When she wakes from sedation but her brain is already starving  
For news: How many? How were they? It's never carved in stone  
From cycle to cycle. She dresses quickly, ignoring a sharp kiss   
Of pain from her belly. Leaving the suite, she walks down the fern-  
Colored halls of the gynecology wing, back to her office to wait. Her blood

Pounding, her finger itches to call the lab. The last two times, her blood  
Betrayed her, so she clings to this chance, her last lifeline in deep water.  
Cuddy sits working and waiting, her head bowed, her hair brushing fern-  
Soft against her face. Staying by the phone, she lets herself starve  
Until she hears the results--twelve eggs. A dozen little chances. She cries with relief and kisses  
The receiver; when she leaves for the night, she's no longer feeling as heavy as stone.

Five more days pass, and Cuddy's feeling as if she's frozen in stone.  
She works, spars with House, and attends committee meetings, but neither her blood  
Nor her heart is in it. Instead she clutches her hope like a last goodbye kiss  
Until the fifth day, back on the table, when she thinks of floating on water  
As the best three embryos are inserted. After, she willfully tries to starve  
Her fear while waiting again, folding her thoughts inward like fronds on a fern.

The weeks pass, and now Cuddy's whole body trembles, a fern  
Blowing in the breeze; that part of her heart, that she long set into stone,  
Cracks and crumbles to pieces. Her soul no longer has to starve  
With longing--at long last positive, she lets joy flow through her blood  
As she clutches the test strip, her eyes brimming with water.  
Finally--at last--perhaps she can dream now, of plump cheeks to kiss.

So Cuddy nurtures her faith, a tender fern, until the passing of blood;  
When, stunned and alone, her hope sinks like a stone in still water,  
And she wonders if her lips will now starve from lack of being kissed.


End file.
